Mathematics for the interested outsider

We continue investigating the differential forms we defined last time. Recall that we started with the position vector field and use the interior product to produce the -form on the punctured -dimensional space . We restrict this form to the -dimensional sphere and then pull back along the retraction mapping to get the form .

I’ve asserted that , and now we will prove it; let be tangent vectors at and calculate

as asserted. Along the way we’ve used two things that might not be immediately apparent. First: the derivative works by transferring a vector from to and scaling down by a factor of , which is a consequence of the linear action of and the usual canonical identifications. Second: the volume form on can be transferred to essentially the same form on itself by using the canonical identification .

We want to exhibit a family of closed -forms that aren’t exact, albeit not all on the same space. In fact, there forms will provide models for every possible way a nontrivial homology class can arise.

For each , we consider the space consisting of the normal -dimensional real affine space with the origin removed. Key to our approach will be the fact that we have a “retract” — a subspace along with a “retraction mapping” such that . That is, the retraction mapping sends every point in to some point in , and the points that were in to begin with stay exactly where they are. Explicitly in this case, the “punctured” -dimensional space retracts onto the -dimensional sphere by the mapping , which indeed is the identity on the unit sphere .

Now, in this space we take the position vector field , which we define by taking the canonical identification and applying it to the vector itself: . We also take the canonical volume form , and we use the interior product to define the -form .

Geometrically, the volume form measures -dimensional volume near any given point . Applying the interior product with is like rewriting the volume form in terms of a different basis so that is the first vector in the new basis and all the other vectors are perpendicular to that one, then peeling off the first term in the wedge. That is, measures -dimensional volume in the space perpendicular to — tangent to the sphere of radius at the point .

Next we restrict this form to , and we pull the result back to all of along the retraction mapping , ending up with the form . I say that the net effect is that , but the proof will have to wait. Still, the form is the one we’re looking for.

About this weblog

This is mainly an expository blath, with occasional high-level excursions, humorous observations, rants, and musings. The main-line exposition should be accessible to the “Generally Interested Lay Audience”, as long as you trace the links back towards the basics. Check the sidebar for specific topics (under “Categories”).

I’m in the process of tweaking some aspects of the site to make it easier to refer back to older topics, so try to make the best of it for now.